1.30.2008

Cool Political Analysis Tool

This is so cool...
http://www.electoralcompass.com/v/wsj

You answer a bunch of questions and it tells you which presidential candidate your views line up with best. And then you can compare individual issues with individual candidates too, all on a nifty little graph.

It said my views were closest to Giuliani and farthest from Obama. Surprisingly I was more moderate (closer to the middle of the graph, though still in the same quadrant) than most of the Republican candidates - but it was a little scary to see how FAR from the center Obama was, just because I thought I kinda liked his personality.

When I compared on individual issues, I lined up with a variety of candidates on different things (including Hillary Clinton on terrorism - my grandfather would be rolling over in his grave!).

I think I tend to fall on the economic left on education and national security, and am the most socially liberal on gun control. I'm the most socially conservative and on the economic right on health care and the economy (surprise surprise, I'm my father's daughter).

Overall, I think I need to read up on the issues a bit more, because I don't think I know all that is involved in a lot of them (like gun control, education, health care...yeah pretty much most of them).

I wish Bush was on here so I could see how much I lined up with him.

Any comments from the peanut gallery?

3 comments:

Justine said...

Mine gave me the same response (i.e. closet to Guiliani, farthest from Obama). However, in looking things over, I think I should really be closer to McCain. I'm not a mathemetician, nor will I pretend to analyze the statistics, so I can't decide if it's some sort of rigged system to make people feel more of a Democrat than they really are, or what. I tend to be wary of these things... the questions are sometimes leading.
But you're right - it does let me know that I need to do some more research!

Kim Tapp said...

Well, I read over their disclaimers and the info about the site and it explained why that type of thing happens.

Looking at all the issues together, it plots you according to your total views (averaging your right/leftness and liberal/conservativeness).

But you could be conservative where Giuliani is liberal and vice versa and still come out with a similar overall average.

And you might have the same general bent on lots of issues as McCain, but one of you feels stronger than the other (thus ending up MORE right/left or MORE liberal/conservative and farther away from him on the overall graph).

Libba Lemon said...

It put me right between Obama & Hillary. No surprise.

Fun tool!